Africans attacked in Tel Aviv protest; MKs: 'infiltrators' are cancer

Coalition MKs incited the crowd against the refugees and asylum seekers during a protest in south Tel Aviv, which was followed by attacks on African immigrants and confrontations with police. A Likud MK called for the prosecution of Israelis giving shelter to Africans.

An African man who was attacked following a rightwing rally in Tel Aviv, May 23, 2012 (photo: Oren Ziv/activestills)

More than 1,000 Israelis protested this evening (Wednesday) against the African refugees and asylum seekers who have settled in South Tel Aviv in recent years. According to eyewitnesses’ reports, the crowd grew angry and ultimately violent, following speeches from Knesset members, including members of the government coalition.

It was one of the most violent protests Tel Aviv has known in recent years. Confrontations were continuing between police and Jewish citizens at around 10:30 p.m. local time.

Dozens of protesters tried to move from the Hatikva neighborhood, where the rally was held, towards Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood, where most African asylum seekers and migrants live. They were stopped by police. Protesters attacked a car passing by carrying African passengers, smashing its windows. Shops associated with the African community were vandalized. [UPDATE: As of midnight, activists in Hatikva are still reporting looting and occasional attacks on immigrants.]

In light of increasing violence and harassment in recent days, activists walked refugee children in Tel Aviv home from school on Wednesday in order to prevent them from potential attacks.

According to Maariv’s website, the mob chased a man from Eritrea, who took shelter in a storefront and was rescued by police. At least two journalists were attacked. One fled the area and the other, whose notepad was snatched by protesters, was sheltered by the cops.

Earlier, Knesset members spoke at the event. Some blamed government inaction for the “infiltration problem,” while others heaped accusations on human rights organizations helping the refugees. Knesset Member Miri Regev called the refugees “a cancer in our body.” Regev, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said that “leftists” are preventing the state from deporting the refugees back to Africa. Knesset Member Danny Danon (Likud), who also spoke at the event, wrote in a Facebook status tonight that “Israel is at war. An enemy state of infiltrators was established in Israel, and its capital is south Tel Aviv.”

According to one of the eyewitnesses, the most inflammatory speaker was MK Michael Ben-Ari, a former member of Meir Kahane’s racist Kach party, who was a resident of south Tel Aviv himself before moving to a settlement. “The police commissioner wants to give the African jobs,” said Ben-Ari, referring to a statement by Chief of Police Yochanan Danino, who recently urged the government to allow the refugees to work in Israel, in order to prevent the crime rate from rising. “This will bring another 50,000 people here,” said Ben Ari.

Asylum seekers in Israel are given temporary residence permits but are not permitted to work in Israel. The government has stated before the High Court that will not enforce the ban on employment, but calls are regularly heard from the right to crack down on employers to prevent the refugees from working.

A shop considered a meeting place for African refugees, vandalized following a Tel Aviv rally (photo: Oren Ziv/activestills.org)

Several local residents also spoke at the rally. Most of them mentioned their fears of a “rising crime rate.” “We are afraid to walk the streets at nights,” said one of the speakers. “The infiltrators are taking over our neighborhood and over our jobs,” said another speaker.

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there are presently some 60,000 African asylum seekers in Israel. Most entered the country by foot through its southern border. While they are termed “infiltrators” by the government, some 85 percent are from Eritrea and Sudan, to which Israel has agreed until now not to return them in light of the situations in those countries. They fall under a form of group protection from deportation, but their individual refugee claims are not processed.

A few recent crimes against Israelis that were linked to the African community have recently received considerable attention in the local media. They led to a wave of protest and declarations by politicians against the refugees and asylum seekers. MK Ofir Akunis, a member of Likud and a Netanyahu proxy, is set to promote a Knesset bill which will criminalize Israelis who employ, drive or give shelter to refugees.

UPDATE: The Israel Police tweeted that in the last week, 11 suspects, most of them minors, were arrested for attacking African refugees in Tel Aviv on several occasions. They used clubs and pepper spray against their victims.

LEAVE A COMMENT

COMMENTS

Anonymous

I look forward to dozens of comments pretending to care about the welfare of African refugees.

Reply to Comment

AMD

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Violence is not the answer. Round them up peacefully and send them on a plane back to wherever they came from. They’re in Israel illegally and have got to go.

Much like Anonymous, I look forward to the crocodile tears and handwringing.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

You don’t care, that is clear, but you also think that people who do only ‘pretend’.
What a sad person you are.

I wonder: Did your mother love you, or did she only pretend? That would explain a lot about you.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Many people, including my family, risked their own lives hiding Jews when THEY needed sheltering. Why not return the favor when other people need it? Unlike then, no-one is going to shoot you when you do.

Reply to Comment

Anonymous

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Elisabeth, lose the pretense. You don’t read 972 because you care about African refugees. That isn’t its purpose. The purpose of 972 is to dig up dirt about Israel and get all the readership to have a good crying circle about how terrible and awful Israel is and why can’t everyone just be leftists like they are.
.
The African refugees make a useful club to beat “rightists” with right now but as soon as their moment in the sun is gone 972 will just move on. And so will you.
.
Don’t pretend what I’m saying isn’t true. Everyone here knows that it is.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

‘rightists’, leftists’ ….geez, what a worldview.

Many people care about others, especially if they are in trouble. Such a concept seems alien to you. I feel sorry for you, but you will never understand why.

Reply to Comment

Daniel de França MTd2

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Gaza Strip has 4000 people/km^2. If Israel is OK for 4 million people to live with that population density, I think Israel can support 80 million in their own territories.

So, I will just shed my crocodile tears for Israel when there are 70 million African refugees. Less than that, they are just huge hypocrites by complaining about the number of incoming African. In fact, they could well support and integrate nearly all of the world’s refugees, which is around 30 million nowadays and still do no feel like living in Gaza!

Israel is a wonderful country!

Reply to Comment

AYLA

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Noam, thank you. @Elisabeth, I’ve been reading your comments for a while and I appreciate your presence, here. @Anonymous–a) get a name. b) so in 2006, when I joined the many Israelis working with no infrastructure on the front lines with refugees crossing into Israel, spending a lot of my time in their shelter in Tel Aviv, bringing a back pack full of food for cooking from the a man with an ethiopian market in Be’er Sheva to Tel Aviv for a woman named Mulu because she had just learned from her older children crossing into Israel that her husband had died along the way of starvation in order to feed them, and she was five months pregnant (which is why they’d sent her ahead with another group), and in their tradition, the person mourning (hers sent her to the hospital with suffering from shock) feeds the others during Shiva–or when we were trying to find someone to take Yergulem to her son’s grave, because he had died from a bullet wound after being shot by Egyptians while crossing into Israel, and she and her daughter had been in Ketsiot prison when he was buried–or while dozens of Israelis were voluntarily teaching the kids who were in the shelter, or when those other volunteers went on to form actual NGO’s like the ARDC to go on helping refugees in Israel with no government support, or when I decided to take any proceeds I may earn from the novel I’m writing to start a school for refugee children, or when my Israeli friends adopted two kids from Sudan, and a high school where I live admitted two others because they had no place to learn, etc. etc. etc.–we were/are all pretending to care? good to know; thanks for the insight, as always.

I wonder whether the fact that the comments boards here are perpetually infested with filthy right-wing trolls is negligence, or design?

Reply to Comment

sh

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Courageous Anonymous. Hard to believe you said “The African refugees make a useful club to beat “rightists” with right now”. You got it so very the wrong way around. It’s those “rightists” that make useful clubs to beat Africans with. Look at that shattered car window, look at the stitches the guy who was beaten up in Netanya needed and look at how quickly people blinded by hatred and paranoia can unravel a society.

Reply to Comment

Anonymous

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Ayla,
Don’t be disingenuous. This is not about you and the work you purportedly have done with refugees. This is about 972′s crocodile tears of the refugees when all this is really about is sticking to their favorite target: Israelis, specifically right wing ones.
.
Do you think 972 will ever publish something about the Arab government in Sudan committing genocide against the Africans there? Or the way that the Egyptians shoot Africans on sight?
.
Presumably you will me that this blog is about “Israel and Palestine,” and not about Egyptians or Sudanese. But I think you and I both know very well that you only care about Africans so far as you can showcase them as victims of Israelis. But not Israelis like you, of course. You’re one of the good ones.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Thank you Ayla.
(By the way, my better half often feels remorse when I have lost my temper and lashed out at heartless comments.)

“Heartless” is not the word. This place stinks of decaying fascist troll flesh.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Rowan, I do no think Anonymous is a troll. As far as I understand, trolls fake opinions in order to disrupt an online discussion. Anonymous is really like that, sad as it is.

Reply to Comment

Kolumn9

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

RB, it is by design of course. 972 actually has a right-wing Zionist agenda in drawing in European money for leftist NGOs working in Israel to create jobs for American olim.
.

What would you suggest? A smell test to see if the poster is right-wing before banning them? Perhaps the site should only allow posters who refer to Israel as the Zionist entity and to Palestinian suicide bombers as peace activists? African infiltrators should of course be referred to as diversity activists.
.

As to the article itself. Attacks on the infiltrators are reprehensible and should be punished. The infiltrators should be peacefully and gradually arrested by the police and expelled to their country of origin. It is not Israel’s problem that the Eritrean men choose to run away to Israel to avoid doing military service or that the South Sudanese want to stay even though their country is now independent. It is most certainly not Israel’s problem that other people are arriving in the country because they make more money in Israel than in their country of origin, even if they bring their kids with them.

Well, at least anonymous and the K9 agree that this is a shameful incident. Otherwise the publication of this story would not bother them.

Reply to Comment

Danny

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

The Jewish version of Kristalnacht. Pretty soon Africans will be forced to wear a yellow patch (possibly in the shape of Africa, or something like that). Who knows, maybe in a few years we will find some really good uses for them (e.g. lampshades). I’m sure Eli Yishai is hard at work about Israel’s “African problem”.

What would I suggest, K9? I would suggest a no platform for fascists comment policy. Failing that, I would suggest Anonymous hack into it and disable the comments boards. But personally, I shall stick around and sling a few rocks at you while the slinging is good.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

“The infiltrators should be peacefully and gradually arrested by the police and expelled to their country of origin. ”

You do not care to properly check their reasons for fleeing, before deporting them, such as other Western democracies do?

Reply to Comment

Branko

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

I hope that some day MKs Danon, Regev and Ben Ari will join their ideological counterparts from Radio Rwanda and rot in Hague prison for crimes against humanity

Reply to Comment

Ben

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

1. I am saddened by the violence which is deplorable, esp. when incitement comes from MKs.
2. I think a portion of migrants should stay (maybe 10%. No state can accept illegal immigration as legitimate such as the US or European states. And I agree, why not hold Egypt accountable or Sudan, Eritrea? Israel is treated unfairly. But Israel should leave these poor people alone, not make it harder for them in Israel.

Reply to Comment

Noam

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

I’ve marched on the streets of Europe against fascists and racists, fighting them as they attack immigrants and their properties- just as was done against Jewry not so long ago. Do these thugs attacking these refugees have no historical perspective? It’s time that people in Israel took to the streets en mass to physically defend these communities. Perhaps then some links can be made with what these same nationalists preach and do in regards to Palestine.

There’s something so touching about Jewish liberalism… something so profound.., redolent of deep, historical wisdom, so painfully acquired… one almost feels that to interfere with it would be “anti-Semitic”…

Reply to Comment

AYLA

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Anon–last year I spent a month in Ethiopia and next year, (fingers crossed), will be in Ghana and Kenya. I wasn’t sure, exactly, what was drawing me to these lands, but thanks to you, now I know! I’m going to search for people I can “showcase as victims of Israel”! With this new insight, I can see now that this, too, is how I choose my friends! When I find the best victim of Israel I can possibly find, I’ll marry him. Or her! Who cares? If I can showcase them as victim of Israel, that’s really all that matters! And if she’s a woman, we can also use our relationship to expose Israeli pink washing! — two-for-one!

Reply to Comment

Kolumn9

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

RB, Who gets to determine what’s fascist? You? I suppose you recommend that a website that supposedly stands for progressive Western liberal values should implement thought police functionality? I suppose you want a safe place for those that choose to promote their belief in a global Zionist conspiracy.
.

Elisabeth, wouldn’t that still require that the government actually go through the process of arresting those in Israel illegally in order to determine whether they should be expelled? My hunch is that 90%+ have no legitimate reason to stay in Israel. What is your percentage?

No, I see my errors now, K9… after all, Israel’s democracy is the wonder of the world, in more senses than one… a villa in the jungle of black barbarism… let it blossom, let it grow… in the sun the rain the snow, love is lovely, let it grow…

Reply to Comment

Jogortha

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Hmm.. Trying to summarize the comments above:

-mobs attacking others because they don’t like them, and want them out of their country… Ok, sure, move on.. not a biggy,
-so long it happens in Israel, don’t dare use the “R” word or you’re antisemitic.
-These things happen in all countries in the world, especially in Muslim societies, it’s awful when it happens there, but it’s not that of an issue when it happens in Israel…
- Sure it happened, but people shouldn’t talk about it because it’ll make israel look bad.
-Those who find this “event” offensive, do so not out of concern for human beings but because they’re anti-israel
End of summary

Conclusion: a mob tried to lynch someone because of their ethnic origin, regardless of how you feel about Israel, this event is indisputably VERY ugly.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Kolummn 9, I am glad to hear that simply deporting them without checking their reasons for fleeing now seems unreasonably harsh to you as well.

As for the percentage: How could I know? Do I know their background in advance?

But to give you an indication: The Dutch asylum procedure (thanks to Wilders and co) is now regarded as one of the harshest in Europe. Still one third is allowed permanent residency.

Reply to Comment

AYLA

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

K9–over 60% of african refugees here are from Eritrea, a country where citizens are regularly imprisoned and tortured (often resulting in their death) just for speaking out for their basic freedoms. Anyone coming from Eritrea is generally eligible for asylum-seeking status. But Israel has no refugee policy for non-jews, so non-jewish asylum-seekers here have no due process. If they did, the responsibility for them would not fall only on Israel. Without a policy, Israel is stuck. But they don’t want such a policy (you know, the kind democracies have), so they have to scare everyone into hating refugees instead.

Reply to Comment

Kolumn9

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Elisabeth, you know the national distribution of the infiltrators. 60% are from Eritrea. There is no war there. Roughly 25% are from Sudan. In South Sudan the warzone is limited to the border areas. A large percentage of the rest are from Ethiopia. Again, no war. I think you should be able to formulate a rough percentage if you really wanted to, but you don’t want to do that, right? For you the reality here doesn’t matter as long as you can hold your head up high, yell out your principles and call everyone that disagrees a fascist. Yes, the vast majority (90%+) should be deported. We can discuss what to do with the rest once that is done.

Now I understand the secret of taharat ha-neshek. Harold Pinter may have been thinking of this usage when he has the two torturers in his playlet “The New World Order” say this:

LIONEL. I feel so pure.
DES. Well, you’re right. You’re right to feel pure. You know why?
LIONEL. Why?
DES. Because you’re keeping the world clean for democracy.

Reply to Comment

Kolumn9

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Ayla, sorry, I don’t accept that Israel is responsible for accepting Eritreans because they don’t like their government, or don’t want to do military service or want to make more money in Israel. The way this works is that once you accept any of these as justifiable reasons for residency every single person will have a story about being a political dissident, or a draft refusenik, or a whatever.

Reply to Comment

AYLA

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

K9–luckily for humans, you are not in charge of international law. And like I said, Israel would not be solely responsible for asylum-eligible refugees, if they had policy.

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

“I think you should be able to formulate a rough percentage if you really wanted to”

I thought we agreed that a proper PROCEDURE to CHECK their reasons for fleeing was in order!

Why on earth do you think I should or could ‘formulate’ some sort of percentage in advance? Am I a clairvoyant?

I gave you an estimate based on Dutch figures. Do you want me to gaze into a crystal bal instead?

Reply to Comment

Jack

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Attacking the sudanese black minorities is just another proof that this is not a democracy.
The last picture is very appaling and very reminicent of a incident in Germany some decades ago.

By this we are all sustained:
a belief in human nature,
and in justice and parity;
all we have is the faith to carry on.
Imperceptible the change,
as our votes become mere gestures,
and our lords and masters
determine to cast us
in the roles of serfs and slaves,
in the new empire’s name.
Yes and every bloody emperor
claims that freedom is his cause,
as he buffs up on his common touch
as a get-out clause.
Unto nations, nations speak,
in the language of the gutter;
trading prime-time insults,
the imperial impulse
extends across the screen.
Truth’s been beaten to its knees;
the lies embed ad infinitum,
till their repetition
becomes a dictum
we’re traitors to disbelieve.
With what impotence we grieve
for the democratic process,
as our glorious leaders
conspire to feed us
the last dregs of imperious disdain,
in the new empire’s name.
Yes and every bloody emperor’s
got his hands up history’s skirt,
as he poses for posterity
over the fresh-dug dirt.
Yes and every bloody emperor,
with his sickly rictus grin,
talks his way out of nearly anything
but the lie within.
Because every bloody emperor
thinks his right to rule divine,
so he’ll go spinning and spinning
and spinning into his own decline.
Imperceptible the change,
as one by one our voices falter
and the double standards of propaganda
still all our righteous rage.
By this we are all sustained:
our belief in human nature.
But our faith diminishes,
close to the finish,
we’re only serfs and slaves,
as the empire decays.
.
– Peter Hammill

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Ayla, are you serious? There is NO refugee policy (for non-Jews)?

I thought things were just unorganised, and messy, but is it true that non-Jewish asylum-seekers have no due process?

Reply to Comment

Rehmat

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

This shows that Israeli racism is not confined specifically toward the native Muslim and Christian Palestinians or Arabs at large, but rather represent a collective phenomenon within Israeli society as their past western racist upbringing.

henry

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

It is time for you to suffer what you have inflicted on the Whole World,

Reply to Comment

ORION

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

Isn’t that something? For over 50 years the Jews in the American media have been shoving multiculturalism down our throats. Anyone who doesn’t like it is branded as an ignorant evil bigoted white supremacist devil. Now that the dark hordes are at their door THEY DON’T LIKE IT?
I can’t believe the holy Jew that’s been played the victim for a hundred years is going to be racist and separatist. BOGGLES THE MIND.

Reply to Comment

nowswimback

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

What a bunch of bigots. Israel is a place of refuge for all persecuted peoples. No human being is illegal.

Reply to Comment

Piotr Berman

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

A little “real politik”:

If you want to solve problems of some people, it is better to care about them, otherwise you are just a bumbling xenophobic idiot.

If deporting or incarcerating in camps was so simple, the government would do it. The claim that “the left” prevented the government from doing it does not pass a laugh test.

Refugees do not decide lightly to flee to Israel. Ethiopia is a very poor country with a Marxist dictatorship, and yet there are no refugees from Ethiopia. Eritrea has similar level of development and ideology of leadership, and there are tens of thousands of refugees from Eritrea; apparently it is kind of North Korea of the region, hyper-militarized and hyper-repressive state.

It also seems that the refugees that reach Israel are from the dominant ethnic group in Eritrea, and as such, culturally very close to Ethiopians. Ethiopia has large camps for refugees, and some time ago it allow refugees to work outside camps. I imagine that jobs are not plentiful and attractive in a remote border region of a very poor country. The situation is difficult and delicate, but Ethiopia and the refugees could be helped to adequately meet their needs close to their home country, and in the country that is very close culturally. That would require some projects sponsored by a group of country and delicate diplomacy that is poisoned by demagogic outburst of politicians.

One observation I made is that it is the worst behavior that is copied best. The LAST thing we need are pogroms in Ethiopia. (If you notice that Israel is not the location where pogroms were invented, it only support the point that this is a lesson that is very easy to learn.)

Steve

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

I guess I can now tell my wife’s 92-year old grandfather from Kiev to shut up about the pogroms. Incitement, beatings and destruction of property are just what desperate minorities deserve living in a foreign land. Is this seriously what we’ve become?

Reply to Comment

Ethanhaaryeh

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

To those of you who are unable to think as as Jews and are assimilated into the greats unwashed of people who can’t critically think:
I served in the IDF, I lived in south Tel Aviv for 6 months. I can say honestly that these refugees are mostly hardworking individuals and family that have run from genocide into the only nation that will give them shelter, Israel. Before anyone calls me a leftist, I am a Proud member of the national religious party. We must remember those rights Gentiles that sheltered us. We must think as Jews. If we think unto what hashes would want we would realize that as a light unto other nations we have a responsibility to protect those people who dwell in our land. The Torah says we must treat them ll if they abide by the laws of Noah. Those of you who believe it is ok to attack people based on the color of their skin, or where they come from are sinning against Hashem.

Reply to Comment

Aaron the Fascist Troll

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

It’s all a big, juicy media melodrama. It HAS to be a melodrama, because tragedy is too difficult to accept. Tragedy doesn’t play well on the Internet. Instead, people stake out their position on one side or the other and shout that the other side is evil.

How about opposing both African immigration and attacks on African immigrants? Seal the border, and treat the immigrants as human beings.

Reply to Comment

pamela

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

All over the western world, wealthy stable communities are polarised on the issue of refugees.
It comes down to sharing and caring of all the people in our world.
Do we try or do we pull down the shutters, close the door, build the walls and pretend that there is no shared humanity.
How can it be that Israel built on the notion of taking in those without a country, embracing the persecuted, can so brutally treat the people who have WALKED with nothing into your country seeking protection.
There is little hope for the rest of us in our selfish individualistic, every man for himself societies if you cant do it.

Reply to Comment

AYLA

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

@Elisabeth–it’s true, there’s no refugee policy for non-jews in israel. This can actually work for or against people, but right now there’s no question that it’s working against people. I wrote this on the subject in 2010: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-failed-policy-of-no-policy-1.331067. You’re still right in observing a messy and disorganized ‘system’; there is a messy and disorganized sort of “due process”–it’s just haphazard and whimsical. As a result, some asylum-seekers were able to obtained interview with U.N. workers here and did obtained refugee status and work permits, but that was mostly five years ago. Of course it’s understandable that Israel can’t just grant work permits to anyone who crosses illegally into her country, but policy works both ways; to protect asylum-seekers and to protect a country. I have heard from a friend/human rights lawyer working with african refugees here that Israel is working out some kind of policy right now, but I don’t know anything about it–band-aid policy? constitutional policy? There are so many Israelis devoting their lives to African refugee rights and needs here right now, and they would know. Also many of the writers here are more (Haggai Mattar) or more up-to-speed than I am; I’ve directed my attention to my novel, in trust that it’s the way I’m meant to make a difference.
*
We shouldn’t allow ourselves to get so derailed by ignorant and extreme commenters here. The primary article is about these attacks, and what is happening to Israeli society. No one who is alarmed by these attacks is suggesting that every asylum-seeker become an Israeli citizen. We should be discussing the attacks, and sounding our outrage in the real world, especially from within Israeli society. To be silent is to be complicit. Most of Israel is not partaking in attacks such as these, nor in agreement with the extreme commenters (often not Israeli) who condone them. Most Israelis are silent.

Reply to Comment

Richard SM

WednesdayMay 23, 2012

“The Israel Police tweeted that in the last week, 11 suspects, most of them minors, were arrested for attacking African refugees in Tel Aviv on several occasions.”

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

If the police are willing to arrest Israeli citizens for attacking African refugees, why are the IDF unwilling to arrest settlers for attacking Palestinians?

Reply to Comment

Elisabeth

ThursdayMay 24, 2012

Thank you Ayla. That was an excellent article.

Reply to Comment

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I am an independent journalist and editor. I have worked for Tel Aviv’s Ha-ir local paper, for Ynet.co.il and for the Maariv daily, where my last post was deputy editor of the weekend magazine. My work has recently been published in Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth, The Nation and other newspapers and magazines.

I was born in Ramat-Gan and today live and work in Tel Aviv. Before working as a journalist, I served four and a half years in the IDF.

About +972 Magazine

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. It was launched in August 2010, resulting from a merger of a number of popular English-language blogs dealing with life and politics in Israel and Palestine.

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. It was launched in August 2010, resulting from a merger of a number of popular English-language blogs dealing with life and politics in Israel and Palestine.